To those of you who have learned from math textbooks: If you could go back in time, what do you wish you could tell your younger self about how to read them more effectively?
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Something I wish I'd added to those: for really good work, it may take a month to understand even a short paper, and years to understand it well. There's a very strong power law at work.
In particular, the best way to understand a paper is sometimes to write a paper - or even a series of papers, or a book - riffing on it.
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My co-authored quantum computing book is in considerable part an exegesis of about 20-30 papers.
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Oh, fascinating. Yes, I think something like "trust that just because one paper takes a month, it doesn't mean all papers the following will" can be a surprisingly helpful thought.
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It's not just that: it's that most papers should take 2 minutes to read. And then somewhat fewer should take 10 mins. 30 mins. Etc. But the really valuable ones take a month, or years.
End of conversation
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